Poland Contemporary art
Magdalena Abakanowicz was a distinguished Polish artist, celebrated for her innovative use of textiles as a sculptural medium. Born on June 20, 1930, in Falenty, Poland, and passing away on April 20, 2017, in Warsaw, she carved out a significant place in the art world with her unique artistic expressions that often explored themes of crowd behavior, the trauma of war, and the individuality of the human condition.
Abakanowicz's education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw was a period of both artistic and personal growth, shaping her future works. During the 1960s, she began creating the "Abakans," large-scale textile sculptures that challenged conventional forms and expressed dynamic movement and vivid emotion. Her works often featured organic, tactile materials like burlap, resin, and wood, which added a profound depth and rawness to her sculptures.
Her sculptures are well-represented in major public installations and collections worldwide, including the National Museum in Wrocław, Poland, Grant Park in Chicago, and the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. These pieces are not just art forms but are experiences, inviting viewers to explore deeper psychological and existential themes.
For those captivated by the profound impact and the stirring beauty of Magdalena Abakanowicz's work, subscribing for updates can provide regular insights and information on exhibitions and sales of her works at auctions. This is an excellent way to stay connected with the legacy of an artist who continuously redefined the boundaries of sculpture and installation art.
Hanna Dąbkowska-Skriabin is a Polish artist.
She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in the Department of Painting.
Hanna was very concerned about the fate of the human race, which is ruining itself with greed and short-sightedness. This is reflected in the works of the artist: many of her paintings are a timeless vision of a harsh world dominated by suffering and injustice. As if to protest against all this evil, Hanna Dąbkowska-Skriabin painted both paintings about love and beautiful landscapes. She is best known for her oil paintings. She has also mastered the techniques of ceramics and tapestry.
Edward Dwurnik was a Polish expressionist painter and graphic artist. Between 1963-1970 he studied painting, drawing and sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. He quickly became one of the most important figures of the Polish contemporary art scene.
Edward Dwurnik is best known for his large-scale paintings depicting everyday life, cityscapes and crowds of people. He often used bold, bright colours and strong black outlines to create his distinctive style. Many of his works depict the absurdity and contradictions of modern life in Poland and the struggles of ordinary people against political oppression and social injustice.
Throughout his career, Dwurnik's art has evolved and diversified, covering a wide range of techniques and themes. In addition to painting, he also worked in printmaking and drawing.
Kurt Fleckenstein is a German artist/sculptor associated with land art, minimal art and installation art. Fleckenstein was born in Heddesheim near Mannheim in Baden-Württemberg. His earlier career in landscape architecture, regional planning and horticultural art led to the establishment of several architectural studios in Germany, Austria and Poland. Since 2003 he has worked as a freelance artist with a focus on spatial objects and installations in exhibition centres and public open space. His provocative art form is designed to charm, irritate and challenge the viewer to question and compare “idealism with realism” on major social, cultural, economic and environmental issues. Fleckenstein now divides his home and work life between Mannheim, Germany and Wroclaw, Poland.
Tadeusz Foltyn was a Polish painter and sculptor.
In his works, the artist worked with various materials (bronze, iron and stone) to which he added paint. He achieved a dark and mysterious result, sometimes even causing destruction by depicting silhouettes, animals or buildings.
Johnny Friedlaender was a leading German/French 20th-century artist, whose works have been exhibited in Germany, France, Netherlands, Italy, Japan and the United States. He has been influential upon other notable artists, who were students in his Paris gallery. His preferred medium of aquatint etching is a technically difficult artistic process, of which Friedlaender has been a pioneer.
Stefan Gierowski was a Polish painter and an avant garde artist of post-war Poland.
For many years he was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw where he earned numerous distinctions. He abandoned representational and realist painting midway through the 1950s and devoted himself entirely to abstract and optical effects. Acknowledging the concreteness of materials and colors, the artist, by his own admission, is mostly intrigued by the dual nature of light, how light is enclosed within a painting and yet somehow escapes it. According to the artist, each painting has a structure and a framework based on physical laws until it leaves the studio and becomes an enigma, at the disposition of the viewer, who discerns its content through a combination of emotional response and introspection. His paintings hang in major galleries in both Europe and the United States and in many countries throughout the world.
Jazep Mikhailovich Gorid (Russian: Язеп Михайлович Горид) was a Belarusian and Polish-Lithuanian artist of the first half of the twentieth century. He is known as a graphic artist and painter, caricaturist and illustrator.
Jazep Gorid drew political and everyday caricatures, painted portraits and landscapes. He also worked in book graphics, illustrated and designed books and other printed publications. In addition, the artist created stained-glass windows and murals.
Günter Wilhelm Grass was a German novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor, and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Grass is best known for his first novel, The Tin Drum (1959), a key text in European magic realism. It was the first book of his Danzig Trilogy, the other two being Cat and Mouse and Dog Years. His works are frequently considered to have a left-wing political dimension, and Grass was an active supporter of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). The Tin Drum was adapted as a film of the same name, which won both the 1979 Palme d'Or and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In 1999, the Swedish Academy awarded him the Nobel Prize in Literature, praising him as a writer "whose frolicsome black fables portray the forgotten face of history".
Blalla Wolfgang / Wolfgang Ewald Hallmann was a German painter and graphic artist. He deals with fundamental existential questions (religion, sexuality, ...) in a drastic, both blasphemous and obscene manner. Formally, it moves between surrealism, outsider art (Art Brut), folk art and numerous references to art history. In the 1980s, the cycle of "horror pictures" was created. In addition to other techniques, the reverse glass painting known from folk art is characteristic of him. In 1995/1996 Hallmann produced a series of 149 sheets of woodcuts in which he recapitulated his own career under the title “The Way, the Truth and Life”. He was a member of the artist trio around Herbert Haberl and Bernd Wangerin. In 1965 he was a founding member of a traveling theater that later became “Hoffmanns Comic Teater”. Members of this group later formed the rock band Ton Steine Scherben.
Stanisław Horno-Poplawski was a Polish sculptor, artist and teacher.
In the late 1910s, young Stanisław became interested in painting and art in Moscow, where his family moved from Georgia, then continued his studies at the Warsaw School of Fine Arts. Stanisław Gorno-Poplawski made the subject of his sculpture a rough field stone, giving it the features of famous and unknown Poles' faces, creating compositions filled with life. His works can be seen in many museums in Poland and the world.
Malgosia Jankowska is a contemporary Polish and German artist. She studied painting in Berlin and Warsaw. Her works are distinguished by fine strokes, great depth and a high level of detail. Her classical compositions are effective and expressive. Malgosha has been living and working in Berlin since 2001. Since 2006, he has regularly exhibited his work, mainly in Germany.
Peter Robert Keil is a German painter and sculptor.
In the beginnings of his artistic career, Peter Keil's style was influenced by German expressionism. However, his style changed visibly at the beginning of the 60s when he lived in Paris for a while and emerged in the city's nightlife. Keil increasingly parted with his realistic approach and developed a new, much more spontaneous and dynamic painting style. Since then, the use of intensive to lurid colours and the absence of realistic representation have become characteristic of his painting style. In his paintings, the colour is applied with quick brushstrokes and occasionally with impasto techniques and the images are additionally abstracted by the use of Graffiti elements. Keil prefers to paint human figures, portraits, big city scenes, landscapes and still life images of flowers. His emotional way of painting is mainly driven by a desire for freedom from social constraints and conventions. In the past 50 years, he has created numerous large- and small scale paintings in oil and mixed media on canvas but also some sculptures in wood and steel and a great number of majolicas.
Konstantin Ivanovich Khoroshevich (Russian: Константин Иванович Хорошевич) was a Soviet and Belarusian artist of the second half of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. He is known as a painter who worked in the genres of landscape, portrait, still life.
Konstantin Khoroshevich during his career created more than 500 paintings, reflecting among other things significant events in the history of Belarus. In the last years of his life he worked on creating a gallery of portraits of cultural figures, his famous compatriots.
Ladislas Kijno is a French artist of Polish origin, one of the greatest abstractionists of the twentieth century.
In 1958 he moved to Paris and was accepted into the Salon de Mai committee. In Paris Kijno invented the technique of froissage - work with crumpled paper. During the same period the artist began experimenting with spray can paints, thus creating a synthesis between traditional painting techniques and modern inventions. Through the use of spray cans, Ladislas Kijno became known as one of the "spiritual fathers" of French street art.
In 1980 at the Venice Biennale Kijno exhibited 30 monumental paintings in the recognizable "crumpled" technique under the general title "Theater of Neruda".
Ryszard Krynski is a Polish fantasy painter with contemporary themes.
He paints in the painstaking technique of glaze painting. Each picture of the artist surprises in his own way, conducting a dialogue between the past and the present, reality with a joke.
Ryszard Krynski has exhibited his works at numerous collective and individual exhibitions in Poland and abroad. He is a member of the Association of Polish Artists and Designers.
Moshe Kupferman (Hebrew: משה קופפרמן) was an Israeli painter known for his abstract, minimalist works. He was a major figure in Israeli art, and his work was recognized internationally.
Kupferman emigrated to Israel in 1945. He studied at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem and later in Paris. Kupferman's early works were influenced by the European modernist tradition, but he later developed a unique style that was characterized by minimalism and simplicity.
Kupferman's paintings often featured a limited palette of colors and simple geometric shapes arranged in a grid-like structure. He believed that his art should express a sense of spiritual calm and balance and sought to create works that were both visually striking and meditative.
Kupferman's work was exhibited extensively in Israel and around the world, and he received numerous awards and honors throughout his career. He was also a teacher and mentor to many younger Israeli artists.
Kupferman's legacy as one of Israel's leading abstract painters continues to influence contemporary Israeli art today.
Tamara Łempicka (born Tamara Rosalia Gurwik-Górska), better known as Tamara de Lempicka, was a Polish painter who spent her working life in France and the United States. She is best known for her polished Art Deco portraits of aristocrats and the wealthy, and for her highly stylized paintings of nudes.
Jan Lenica was a Polish graphic designer and animation director.
Lenica studied architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology. After graduating, however, he turned to graphic design and became one of Poland's best-known poster designers.
Roger Loewig was a German artist, illustrator and writer.
In addition to working as a teacher of Russian, German and history, Loewig independently practiced painting and drawing. In 1963, he organized an exhibition of his work, but was arrested on charges of "incitement endangering the state". Most of his paintings and literary texts were confiscated.
In 1972, he left for the Federal Republic of Germany, where he found recognition for his talent. Along with Günter Grass, Christoph Meckel and others, he joined the wide circle of "Berlin poets-artists", and Loewig's visual art became recognized as fantastic realism. Loewig's artworks and texts about war, flight, exile, and unfreedom placed him among the most important German artists of the postwar period.
Marcin Maciejowski – is a contemporary Polish artist renowned for his humorous and candid observations of the everyday life. Painting from commercials, television series, newspapers, the internet, art history and his own experiences, Maciejowski is a keeper of our contemporary conditions.
Piotr Makowski is a contemporary artist from Poland. He works primarily in painting and drawing, and his work often explores themes of memory, identity, and the passage of time.
Makowski studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, Poland, and has since exhibited his work in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Poland and abroad. In 2013, he was awarded the Paszport Polityki award, one of the most prestigious awards for artists in Poland.
Overall, Makowski's work is marked by a keen sensitivity to the world around him, and an ability to capture the essence of his subjects with a subtle, understated touch.
Anton Ivanovich Manastyrsky (Russian: Антон Иванович Манастырский) was a Ukrainian and Soviet artist of the twentieth century. He is known as a painter and graphic artist.
Anton Manastyrsky became famous for his genre paintings based on Ukrainian folk songs. His works are characterized by plasticity, rhythm and poetry. He also worked in the portrait genre, creating such canvases as "Portrait of Mother", "Portrait of Taras Shevchenko" and others. The master also illustrated books and worked in the religious genre, restoring the iconostasis in the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Ancient Galich.
Adam Marczukiewicz is a Polish painter and graphic artist working in Krakow.
He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow at the Faculty of Graphic Arts, a member of the Association of Polish Artists.
Marczukiewicz works in different genres, but he has one recurring motif - prickly cacti. His paintings depict real events and views in a grotesque vision and are painted in rich vibrant colors.
Igor Mitoraj, a renowned Polish sculptor, was celebrated for his unique approach to sculptural art, which combined classical techniques with modernist interpretations. Igor Mitoraj's artistic journey led him across Europe, studying under notable figures such as Tadeusz Kantor at the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts before expanding his horizons in Paris and Italy.
Igor Mitoraj's works are distinguished by their classical inspiration, often focusing on the human body's beauty and fragility. Yet, he introduced a contemporary twist by presenting his figures as fragmented or truncated, a nod to the imperfections and vulnerabilities inherent in human nature. This stylistic choice not only set him apart in the art world but also allowed him to explore deeper themes of human experience and existential reflection.
His sculptures, often large-scale, are displayed in public spaces across the globe, from the streets of European cities to the ruins of Pompeii, where his piece "Daedalus" stands as a testament to his artistic legacy. Igor Mitoraj's influence extends beyond public installations, with his works featured in various prestigious exhibitions and collections, illustrating a career marked by a commitment to exploring the human condition through art.
For art collectors and enthusiasts interested in Mitoraj's work, staying informed about upcoming sales and auction events can provide unique opportunities to acquire pieces by this influential artist. Subscribing to updates related to Igor Mitoraj can ensure you're always in the know about new offerings and events celebrating his artistic contributions.
Oh De Laval is the nickname of Olga Pothipirom, a contemporary artist who is half Polish and half Thai.
Oh De Laval's erotic expressionism conveys raw and wild emotions. Her figurative compositions are influenced by film noir and French new wave cinema, and seek to capture promiscuous psychological undercurrents. O de Laval's works are linked to hedonism, they call for pleasure in everything, including art.
Paulina Olowska is a Polish painter and photographer, who also works in the field of performance and video-art, social action and applied art. The areas of her artistic explorations are modernist utopias and research on the work of 20th century artists, which she combines with her own creative practice to bring unjustly forgotten ideas back to life.
Zbigniew Rogalski is a Polish installation artist and photographer.
He is considered not just a painter, but a director of paintings, because he easily mixes painting and photography, taking advantage of both. As a result, Zbigniew Rogalski achieves illusion and optical effects in his creations, whether portrait or landscape.
Wilhelm Sasnal is a Polish painter, photographer, poster artist, illustrator and filmmaker.
Sasnal graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, specializing in painting. Besides painting, he creates drawings in pencil and ink. The artist takes his subjects from everyday life, using images from media, propaganda and pop culture. Sasnal often paints from photographs and moves freely from figurative painting to abstraction.
Wilhelm Sasnal is considered one of the most prominent and internationally successful Polish contemporary artists.